Nick Cripps

I can't imagine how incredibly hard this must be for you and your family but here on the forum we're all rooting for you. You are respected member of our community and we all look forward to seeing you get back to enjoying your hobby, alongside all the pleasures of family life.

Cracking photos, Mark! By the way, have you ever thought of writing copy for estate agents 🤔😂

As mentioned elsewhere, I spent the day at the fly-in hosted by the Don Valley MFC near Doncaster. There was a breezy crosswind which reduced the turnout today (compared to yesterday, so I'm told) but good fun was had by all. I took along the RV-4, Spitfire, L-39 and, seemingly, everyone's favourite model, the Cosmic Wind Little Toni; well, a couple of people told me how much they enjoyed seeing it fly! Current plan is to take the RV-4 and Little Toni down to Old Warden to fly at the Modelair scale event next weekend... but it all depends on the weather.

Another good day out at Don Valley MFC, despite being a bit blustery at times but at least it stayed dry. Good to meet up with Zflyer again and the other regulars, and thanks to John and the team for the usual friendly welcome and good organisation. This picture was taken later in the afternoon when things were winding down. In the foreground are a couple of my models with Paul Marsh's squadron and Chris Barlow's Wot 4XL behind. Looking forward to the next one over the August bank holiday weekend!

I just discharge them through a car headlight bulb for a couple of days outside then strip back the insulation and twist the bare ends together. I then take them to the local recycling centre and put them in the battery box or leave them out for the council guys to deal with.

Hopefully another weekend away in the caravan for me but, with such fickle weather at the moment, I'll leave it to the last minute to make the decision.

Not much flying today it seems so you can have a few more pictures of the RV-4. These are courtesy of Roy Maddison.

I can get only make it on the Sunday this time. Of course, that's assuming John books the right weather 😉

I've received some photos of the RV-4 from yesterday's impromptu flying display for the camera club. Here's a couple of them: Credit: Malcolm Casey.

Great day at the field today. I spent the morning helping my former trainee with some more advanced lessons and test-flying various models for a couple of new members. These were a Wot Trainer, Junior 60, Bixler and an Easy Pigeon - none of which types I'd flown before so new experiences for me. All went well apart from suffering a deadstick with the Wot Trainer. This surprised me with how long it would glide meaning I had to abort the crosswind landing on the short strip and haul it round onto the remaining half of the main runway. I then had a couple of flights with the Laser FT200-powered RV-4 which I'm now finally getting comfortable with. Before the 2nd flight, 4 guys from a local camera club came onto the site to take some photos of the nearby Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station which is due to be decommissioned at the end of September (UK's last coal-fired power station). They joined me in the pilots box and were happily snapping away as I flew low passes down the runway with the power station in the background. I thoroughly enjoyed this as it gave some purpose to the flight rather than just bumbling around and making it up as I go along. The landing was probably the best I've ever done with the model too! After the flight I passed on my email address and asked them to pick out a few shots and send them to me. Here's one I took on my phone:

You might want to consider skinning the forward section of the floats (ahead of the step) with 1/64" birch ply. Floats can take a bit of a battering in this area when running the model back to the edge of the lake. I've recently completed a set of hot-wire cut floats and skinned them in poplar veneer with glass-cloth over the top. I found the poplar ply to be a bit soft but with a distinct, harder grain in places. I'm thinking that over the winter I will strip the lower front section of the skinning and replace it with 1/64" ply. Not cheap but I think it is worth it for better damage resistance.

I'm planning to stay at Buckminster in the caravan from Thursday through to Sunday. I've got my FT200-powered RV4 for the Laser day on Friday, a Wot4 and anything else I can get finished for the Best of British weekend, including a couple of free-flight models if the weather is suitable. I may even dig out a Warlord and fly a bit of control-line.

Have a look at the Spektrum DXS and AR410 4 CH Receiver manual here. Buried near the bottom of page 9 is a reference to low Tx battery voltage is indicated by beeping and flashing red LED.

Absolutely spot on, Richard. That's the most important part of the flight to me, too.

DD is building a new model, not modifying an existing one. The CoG (balance point) was used as the datum for the moment calculation. The Laser is 220g (~8oz) heavier than the OS it will replace. Thinking on this a bit more, I would be tempted to err on the side of nose-heavy as balancing that out with a small weight at the rear is much more preferable to adding a lot of weight on what would be a very short nose if in fact it is required.

So the Laser is in fact 50% heavier than the OS. More than I expected , I have to say!

As GG says, as long as you keep the basic dimensions identical, especially the position of the balance point, then you won't see any change in the model's flying characteristics. However, I think your suggested mod is too drastic and you may end up with a tail-heavy model. What you need to do is to ensure that the effect of the weight of the engine times its distance from the balance point (moment) remains the same between the 2 engine installations. If we assume (crudely) that the cg of an engine is on its cylinder centreline and measure the distance from there to the balance point, we can multiply this by the weight of the OS engine to give the "moment" of your existing installation. We then have to calculate the distance we place the Laser from the balance point to give the same moment. We simply do this by dividing the first calculation by the weight of the Laser engine, ie: Laser (distance from BP) = OS (weight) x OS (distance from BP) / Laser (weight) This will give you the distance from the balance point to the cylinder centreline that you will need to place the Laser engine assuming all other things remain unchanged. Give this a try. I'm guessing the answer won't be as much as the proposed 7cm reduction but I'm open to be proved wrong - the maths won't lie!

I took a trip to my local field today to do some D-Day commemorative flights.

Have a look here: Test Standard Guidlines

Great news, Matty 👍

That's a shame, John. Luckily, I decided at the last minute not to bring the caravan up and stay for the weekend but just do the one day tomorrow instead. Now that you've cancelled I'll just have to find something else to do tomorrow before my wife finds extra jobs for me!

Yes, if it has sufficient channels for the model you plan to use it with. Remember that you will need to use one channel for switching modes on the Reflex unit.

Sorry, guys, but I disagree. The simplest approach is to use a standard receiver and wire up the Reflex unit as described in the manual. The system has 3 operating modes and is calibrated for the model. I have found these to work well and, even as an experienced flyer, I find the different modes can be useful at times. You can use it with any receiver including a Spektrum AS3X/SAFE receiver* and do not need to do any further setting of the receiver itself. *If using an AS3X receiver then it needs to have the AS3X switched off. A new receiver straight out of the box will default to no stability and can be used directly. If you remove an AS3X receiver from a different model then you will need to completely reprogram all the settings as they will not be suitable for this particular model. Otherwise just use a basic non-stability receiver such as the AR410 or AR620. If you insist on removing the Reflex unit and want to use the stability function of an AS3X receiver, then you will have to program the gains, etc. yourself via Forward Programming on your transmitter. Oh, and the SBU/PPM MODE cable can be used with receivers that have SBUS or equivalent capability and negate the need for using individual cables for aileron, elevator, rudder etc. between the receiver and Reflex unit. If you don't understand how this works, then I suggest you leave well alone!

Don't think many V2s got as far as Nottinghamshire 🤔 Anyway, I'm sure it will be alright on Monday and you can enjoy your holiday relaxed in the glow of a good job well done 👍

I know how it sounds but it's actually the 1st house on the right-hand side of the main road as you enter the village from the North; the earlier 557 houses don't seem to exist! Let's hope Monday's driver is a bit more concientious.